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- Nov 9, 2017
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Can we all agree on that challenge mode is a great feature on parkour, but executed so damn poorly that it's barely playable? There is a reason why most players play normal mode even though challenge mode should be the better one. I personally love speedrunning and competition in parkour, challenge mode has great potential for this but isn't getting enough attention, therefore I have came up with 10 suggestions and improvements how challenge mode actually should be.
Please read these suggestions and comment your own opinions about this :)
1. The timer shouldn't be server tick dependent.
This is one of the reason why challenge mode sucks balls. The timer is tick dependent, which means if the server has a low tps (lag), the timer will slow down. Leading to people doing maps in a few seconds. That's why most world records are impossible to beat. Because they abused the lag in order to get a low, unbeatable time. Why don't make the timer the same as champion maps? Where it is based of the real time and only the in game clock lags. The plus side with champion map timers are also that it's always on and counts, even after reboots. Then you can do maps in challenge mode without worrying about you time to disappear because of the server reboot. Which has happened me quite often.
2. Give the timer milliseconds.
Isn't this pretty obvious? Most of the maps, especially easy - hard are completable within seconds. This means that many maps will have a shared world record. But (from what I know) it is alphabetical so the one with the first letter gets the wr. And if you want to take the world record you have to shave the record down with a whole second which is pretty much impossible on most of the maps. Giving the timer milliseconds would make speedrunning so much better in every way. And I know it's possible to implement, many other servers has done it.
3. Challenge Mode should be the normal mode, or maybe combine the 2 modes.
You will probably disagree with me (because you are a noob) but what I mean is that I wouldn't mind seeing challenge mode as the standard mode. This is because more players should play challenge mode, being the first thing new players will choose and it being renamed to normal mode. This will probably bring more competition into manacube if more people know about the ability to speedrun maps. The current normal mode could instead be renamed to easy mode, where speed, enderpearls and jump boost are allowed etc.
Another idea is instead to combe the two modes into one. Meaning that everyone has a chance to time the maps but also use speed or epearl if it's too hard for them. But if they use helping items their times will be invalid and gone. This will probably be too hard to implement so I understand if this can't be a feature.
4. Add official map leaderboards, not only top 3.
To bring more competition into challenge mode I think we need to give more motivation aswell. If you know your position on the leaderboard you might wanna continue to grind for the world record or a better position. Or maybe you will be satisfied seeing yourself in a top 10. Therefore I think expanding the leaderboard on every map would be a great idea. You should be able to perfom a command to show the leaderboard for example /leaderboard luckyblock 2 will show the 2nd page of the leaderboard on lucky block.
The message you get after completing a map in challenge mode should also show which rank you have. Example:
5. Replace the world records stat with a new point system.
The world record stat is kinda unfair since it's being dominated by the most skilled person on manacube. It might not be possible to balance it out. But at least we could make it more fun. So the new point system only works with the leaderboard suggestion above. And it should be called something like record points or speedrun points. And basically it gathers points for your overall placement on the new map leaderboards. So for example
Top 10 gives you 1 point.
Top 5 gives you 2 points.
Top 3 gives you 3 points.
World Record gives you 5 points.
These points would then be combined and replace the world records stat and leaderboard in spawn, and they could also be showed on the sidebar and on your name when you hower over it. This could also be a cool way to give away new titles, by having x amount of record points.
6. Update the style of map descriptions in the log.
Together with the other suggestions above I think the layout of map description on the log has to be redone as it does feel kinda outdated and clumsy. Here is an image on how it could look if all suggestions were implemented, ignore the italics, I couldn't fix it..
7. Announce world records in chat.
This is a small one but would be a nice one to have, and maybe encourage more people to compete for the world record aswell. Simply announce when someone gets the world record by having a chat message. This could also be a method to catch hackers in case their time is suspicious. Example:
8. The diamond should let you choose mode.
Simple quality of life suggestion, the diamond is a good feature since there is so many maps, it picks one random for you. Though it only picks normal mods which is very annoying. Would certainly help if it let you choose between normal or challenge mode.
9. Completing all maps in challenge mode will give you another reward.
To show you are the real pro it could be cool to flex. People (including me) has suggested another color of the checkmark if you complete all maps in challenge mode. Or maybe a title or some other kind of reward. Just something to give it a purpose.
10. Fix the broken challenge mode maps.
Some maps broke in challenge mode, making it impossible to complete them all. This is just unsatisfying, the maps i know of are airballoon], minygolf and tropics.
Please read these suggestions and comment your own opinions about this :)
1. The timer shouldn't be server tick dependent.
This is one of the reason why challenge mode sucks balls. The timer is tick dependent, which means if the server has a low tps (lag), the timer will slow down. Leading to people doing maps in a few seconds. That's why most world records are impossible to beat. Because they abused the lag in order to get a low, unbeatable time. Why don't make the timer the same as champion maps? Where it is based of the real time and only the in game clock lags. The plus side with champion map timers are also that it's always on and counts, even after reboots. Then you can do maps in challenge mode without worrying about you time to disappear because of the server reboot. Which has happened me quite often.
2. Give the timer milliseconds.
Isn't this pretty obvious? Most of the maps, especially easy - hard are completable within seconds. This means that many maps will have a shared world record. But (from what I know) it is alphabetical so the one with the first letter gets the wr. And if you want to take the world record you have to shave the record down with a whole second which is pretty much impossible on most of the maps. Giving the timer milliseconds would make speedrunning so much better in every way. And I know it's possible to implement, many other servers has done it.
3. Challenge Mode should be the normal mode, or maybe combine the 2 modes.
You will probably disagree with me (because you are a noob) but what I mean is that I wouldn't mind seeing challenge mode as the standard mode. This is because more players should play challenge mode, being the first thing new players will choose and it being renamed to normal mode. This will probably bring more competition into manacube if more people know about the ability to speedrun maps. The current normal mode could instead be renamed to easy mode, where speed, enderpearls and jump boost are allowed etc.
Another idea is instead to combe the two modes into one. Meaning that everyone has a chance to time the maps but also use speed or epearl if it's too hard for them. But if they use helping items their times will be invalid and gone. This will probably be too hard to implement so I understand if this can't be a feature.
4. Add official map leaderboards, not only top 3.
To bring more competition into challenge mode I think we need to give more motivation aswell. If you know your position on the leaderboard you might wanna continue to grind for the world record or a better position. Or maybe you will be satisfied seeing yourself in a top 10. Therefore I think expanding the leaderboard on every map would be a great idea. You should be able to perfom a command to show the leaderboard for example /leaderboard luckyblock 2 will show the 2nd page of the leaderboard on lucky block.
The message you get after completing a map in challenge mode should also show which rank you have. Example:
5. Replace the world records stat with a new point system.
The world record stat is kinda unfair since it's being dominated by the most skilled person on manacube. It might not be possible to balance it out. But at least we could make it more fun. So the new point system only works with the leaderboard suggestion above. And it should be called something like record points or speedrun points. And basically it gathers points for your overall placement on the new map leaderboards. So for example
Top 10 gives you 1 point.
Top 5 gives you 2 points.
Top 3 gives you 3 points.
World Record gives you 5 points.
These points would then be combined and replace the world records stat and leaderboard in spawn, and they could also be showed on the sidebar and on your name when you hower over it. This could also be a cool way to give away new titles, by having x amount of record points.
6. Update the style of map descriptions in the log.
Together with the other suggestions above I think the layout of map description on the log has to be redone as it does feel kinda outdated and clumsy. Here is an image on how it could look if all suggestions were implemented, ignore the italics, I couldn't fix it..
7. Announce world records in chat.
This is a small one but would be a nice one to have, and maybe encourage more people to compete for the world record aswell. Simply announce when someone gets the world record by having a chat message. This could also be a method to catch hackers in case their time is suspicious. Example:
8. The diamond should let you choose mode.
Simple quality of life suggestion, the diamond is a good feature since there is so many maps, it picks one random for you. Though it only picks normal mods which is very annoying. Would certainly help if it let you choose between normal or challenge mode.
9. Completing all maps in challenge mode will give you another reward.
To show you are the real pro it could be cool to flex. People (including me) has suggested another color of the checkmark if you complete all maps in challenge mode. Or maybe a title or some other kind of reward. Just something to give it a purpose.
10. Fix the broken challenge mode maps.
Some maps broke in challenge mode, making it impossible to complete them all. This is just unsatisfying, the maps i know of are airballoon], minygolf and tropics.
